Doing The Daffodil Sneak

 

With parking at Hubbard Park off-limits due to the Daffodil Festival, I had to use the back door.

Visit #1597, Saturday 2 May 26, 6:15-8:25AM, 4.4 miles, 2.9 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 40s, with intermittent showers then clearing.

Saturday morning I parked in Berlin on Park Drive and walked in through the north gate. I was greeted with some new graffiti on the spillway.

Well now; we'll have to take care of it. More on that later.

The good thing about this graffiti artist (and I use the term loosely) is they were nice enough to put the year of creation on the end of their tag. That lets me know I wasn't too slack in my duties.

If you recall last week's entry, I mentioned finding some leaf bags at a trailhead in Hubbard Park. Chris Bourdon, Director of Parks and Recreation, notified me his staff had picked up the bags. Thanks, Chris!

And also if you recall that same blog post, I found some unusual blue ribbons all along one relatively seldom used trail. At one point the ribbons went in two different directions. This week I would follow the opposite direction from last week and remove whatever more blue ribbons I encountered.

This week I removed an additional 22 ribbons following an even more obscure trail, and from the evidence I can safely conclude it is an illegally built mountain bike trail.

Some evidence besides tire tracks includes this tree root which was profiled with a hatchet or similar tool.

Anyway, I exited the trail near West Peak and while policing the parking lot found this collection of stickers on the fence.

I later tried researching the meaning of this bumper sticker but came up empty. If anyone has an answer, contact me, and I'll think of a prize for whoever can solve this mystery.

About the time I began to remove the stickers, it started to rain, hard enough to put on my raincoat.

As I followed the road down toward the reservoir, a parks department Jeep, Lic. 300.ME I believe, passed me going up presumably to Castle Craig perhaps to put up the flag? Five minutes later he was passing me again heading downhill.

Reaching the sharp bend at the bottom of the hill I found this fallen tree just barely poking in to the road.

There was no way I was going to move this off to the side but with my handy folding saw I managed just fine.

Before:

After:

I think the sawing clocked in at under 3 minutes.

Now, about that graffiti. I returned to the park early Sunday morning to do business.

I couldn't safely reach the right side of the tag from this side of the spillway so I approached it from

the opposite side, above the guardrail. Consequently I wasn't able to see that well looking down at it from an awkward angle, hence the less-than-complete job vs. the left side. I hope you still approve!

By the time you read this the Daffodil Festival will be over, and perhaps the ducks can move back to Mirror Lake in peace.

I Am A Poseur

Gotta get an early start; with the Daffodil Festival Tag Sale Weekend, parking would quickly get ugly.

 Visit #1595, Saturday 25 April 26, 6:40-9:50AM, 5.6 miles, 3.7 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the high 30s to start, quickly rising to more comfortable temps, mostly sunny.

Visit #1596, Sunday 26 April 26, 6:30-8:30AM, 4.1 miles, 3.0 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 50s, cloudy and drying after overnight rain.

By my records and rough estimates, I pick up 300-500 lbs. of litter each year in Hubbard Park.

After reading this recent article in the Meriden Record, I don't dare brag about my numbers.

Interesting that the CTDOT keeps numerical records of the litter they collect. I wonder if they got the idea from me? 😉

However, when starting Saturday's hike, I did find this unusually large dumping at the dirt parking lot in the northwest corner of Mirror Lake. I'll let the parks department know about it but they have their hands full with the Daffodil Festival, I'm sure.

I hadn't been to the farther reaches of Hubbard Park in many weeks and looked forward to the views and woods. First stop would be West Peak.

Along the way I found Cat Graffiti #26 since November 2016.

I did not have the tools with me to address this which is part of the reason I returned on Sunday. I did however have the tools to remove Cat Graffiti #s 27, 28, 29, and 30, all found on Saturday. I KNOW where to look.

After, a sample:

Along the way up to West Peak I picked up Find of the Week #1.

Why this mace canister was discarded on the Blue Trail, and why it was empty, we'll never know.

Reaching West Peak in the early morning, I took a few moments to enjoy the view.

Then it was back to work and hiking.

Taking this trail down, I found a few fallen trees, which I was able to remove with the help of the newest addition to my toolkit; compact, light, yet effective. I'm kicking myself for not being aware of this tool sooner.

Also on this long established yet little used trail, I started finding, and removing, these blue ribbons.

In fact, I removed FIFTY-TWO ribbons, and that wasn't all of them because they went off in other than my intended direction of travel. More on them next week.

And what hike wouldn't be complete without finding and removing more foam stickers? Here are #s 23 and 24 of 2026.

I found it necessary to return to Hubbard Park on Sunday because on Saturday's hike I found evidence of our park's red paint graffiti vandal, and if I went looking in the right places, I could expect to find, and remove, more.

I found DOZENS of unsightly tags, and covered whatever I found. Here is just a sample.

Heading back to the park on the trail behind the water tank, I found a fallen tree with branches encroaching on the trail. My handy saw to the rescue.

Walking on the Soap Box Derby Track  I picked up Find of the Week #2.

Since the road the Soap Box Derby is on was used for vendor parking for the tag sale as I noticed on Saturday, I suspect this was dumped by one of the vendors, otherwise this road is never open to traffic.

Regardless, this is sad. There was a trash truck parked by the tag sale tent so I tossed the tire and my Sunday trash into the truck.

What's not sad are the crowds attending the tag sale.  Good luck bargain hunting!

Blooming Along With The Daffodils

 

The tent is up; a sign the Daffodil Festival is around the corner.

Visit #1594, Sunday 19 April 26, 6:10-8:35AM, 3.8 miles, 10.8 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 40s, light rain.

Today's early start and finish were necessary so I could return home in time to watch the last 40 miles or so of the Netherlands spring bicycle racing classic Amstel Gold. Now get your brain out of the gutter; we're not watching beer, we're watching a bicycle race!

Just like parts of the race, there was light rain on today's hike. During last week's hike, when I was made aware of spray painted hearts on rocks in the park, I suspected if I looked in the right places I would find more. So I packed spray paint just in case. I was not disappointed. In fact I found more than red hearts; way too many tags to count, all red. I think I covered them all.

Foam stickers numbers 19-22 for 2026 were removed.

And I continue to be appreciated although I don't resemble that plate.

I found and removed Cat Graffiti numbers 24 and 25 since 2016.

At the gate across from Belmont Avenue were a couple new tags. I didn't have brown paint with me today and removing them with other methods would eat into bike race watching time so I used what I had on me. I'll return with brown paint in the near future.

The big task was this new graffiti I found on the walkbridge over I-691.

I knew this would take significant time to remove but I gave it a cursory effort. Not much difference.

Using my conventional methods would take forever so I left it for now and vowed to return later in the day with my industrial cleaner to complete the job.

On the way back to the park I cleaned up the dirt parking area and collected quite a bit of litter. There was no way I was going to add it to this trash can which was already way beyond capacity, so I brought this week's collected trash home.

The photo above was taken at roughly 8:30AM. When I returned to the park at 5PM it still looked like that.

I did return later Sunday afternoon and vanquished the graffiti on the walkbridge. Except for hiking to and from the walkbridge, my scrubbing time was twenty minutes.

Here's hoping there's good weather for the next two weekends for the Daffodil Festival.